Metroid: Metroid Deluxe Reduxe

What you have here: The old Metroid Deluxe map and layout with a few bugs worked out and snarfblam's Metroid Plus hacks added, (Namely, save games, maps, and the ice beam / wave beam combo).

Some aesthetic flourishes have been added and a few screens were changed for a better experience, (including the infamous perma-stuck room in Norfair), but its mostly the same old hack.

Metroid Deluxe Reduxe version 1.0

Hack performed by The Rooser, (Andrew Emmott)
E-Mail: [email protected]

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| What is this hack? |
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My 2002 level hack of Metroid "Metroid Deluxe" took on a life of its own
despite me basically falling out of the ROM hacking scene shortly after releasing it.
Over the years I've stumbled upon the occasional YouTube video of people playing it,
speed running it, beating it without taking damage, etc and it was gratifying to see
that it was generally considered one of the better NES hacks out there.

More recently, NES Metroid hacks have had a large boost in technology thanks to
snarfblam's Editroid as well as his Metroid Plus ASM hacks. Although I later figured
out how to hex edit some of the modern features we enjoy, during Metroid Deluxe's
time we were sort of stuck with some of the structure of the original game, something
that will date Metroid Deluxe forever; but that doesn't mean I can't rerelease my
"classic" hack with some of the new features.

That's what you have here: The old Metroid Deluxe map and layout with a few bugs
worked out and snarfblam's Metroid Plus hacks added, (Namely, save games, maps, and
the ice beam / wave beam combo).

Some aesthetic flourishes have been added and a few screens were changed for a better
experience, (including the infamous perma-stuck room in Norfair), but its mostly the
same old hack.

This hack is released as an ips patch. The original was an IPS.exe which was harder
for non-Windows folks to use.

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| Some Extra Thoughts |
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Having not played my own hack for years and years, when I began testing it for the
rerelease I sort of had the experience many of you had playing it for the first time.
If I may toot my own horn, I'm impressed with what I assomplished the first time around.
I established definite "styles" for certain areas, placed enemies pretty strategically,
ramped up the difficulty reasonably well, and created a number of innovative
"gate and key" situations.

I would like to think this hack is "historic" among Metroid hacks for putting a lot of
ideas out there that later Metroid level designers would use in their own hacks; maybe
I'm wrong. Still, I'd hate to see this hack fade into obscurity in the wake of heavy
duty Editroid-powered hacks that definitely obsolete it.

Also, you'll note that the tiny amount of graphics hacking I did in the original release
has been removed. At the time I was imagining I would make a line of "Deluxe" NES hacks
and wanted to establish a "brand" if you will, but in 2016 this little bit of branding
looks silly.

The "Deluxe Philosophy" I had at the time was to emphasize "level hacks"
that offered a brand new experience with the same old nostalgic NES engine. Metroid
Deluxe definitely accomplished that, and in that spirit I'd rather leave the games's
original graphics unchanged.

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| Feedback |
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If you play through this version of the hack and have any sort of feedback, please
send me an email. This is an old map and isn't getting overhauled so broad criticism
isn't really useful but if there are any parts that you think aren't WAD or seem buggy
let me know.

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| Thanks |
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I really do want to thank the ROM hacking community for keeping this hack around through
the years. This rerelease would be impossible without you guys loving my hack in the
first place. (As if I still have my original files lying around, right?)

Thanks to everybody!
-Andrew "Rooser" Emmott

Metroid (U) (PRG0) [!].nes
CRC32: A2C89CB9
MD5: D77C8053168DA14B360BF5CAECCC5964
SHA-1: ECF39EC5A33E6A6F832F03E8FFC61C5D53F4F90B
SHA-256: E6E6B7014685ADAE447EBB3833242815747BC1E5DF83ADE79F693FB67CF565B6